Abstract Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to increase global protected and conserved area coverage to at least 30% by 2030. The impact on people, whether positive or negative, will depend on the social context of additional areas and how they are governed and managed. Here, we show that Target 3 could affect large and socially diverse populations under different implementation scenarios. Nearly half the human population lives within 10 km of areas included in a scenario maximising biodiversity representation. Four percent live near areas included in an Indigenous and traditional territories-based scenario, including many in areas with low Human Development Index scores (74%) and high participation in wild harvesting (91%). A scenario prioritising nature’s contributions to people is intermediate on all measures. Our results demonstrate that Target 3 is a highly ambitious social as well as ecological target, requiring an equally ambitious commitment to development funding and support for local residents.

Many studies on the ecology of tropical trees occur in protected areas such as national parks. But we know little of the composition and structure of trees in areas outside protected forests, such as urban areas or along roads. Our goal was to contrast trees in three different land-use types that represent an unmanaged or rural to urban gradient in Guanacaste, Costa Rica: forests inside conservation areas, fencerows, and urban parks. We hypothesized that: (1) trees in fencerows and urban parks have larger mean diameters, lower densities, and less plot-level canopy cover and basal area; (2) tree diversity does not vary along rural to urban gradients, but trees in urban parks have comparatively more non-native species and fewer native species. We measured and identified trees >= 7 cm diameter in replicated plots. Consistent with expectations, tree density and canopy cover were higher in conservation areas compared to fencerows or urban parks. However, basal area was lower in fencerows compared to both other land uses. Parks were dominated by large diameter trees, while conservation areas had smaller stems. When comparing land uses from the perspectives of biodiversity and provisioning ecosystem services such as edible fruit and shade, trees inside forests in conservation areas and outside forests in urban parks in Guanacaste provide complementary benefits to people and are not substitutable. We conclude that understanding trees both inside and outside of forests provides a broader context for studies situated in protected areas and an informative comparison for studies in urban areas.

Social-ecological system dynamics present a fundamental challenge to the attribution of changes in carbon stocks to actions taken by carbon offset sellers. We illustrate this challenge by demonstrating theoretical limitations to causal attribution in two cases from Brazil and India. We show that carbon outcomes in these nature-based carbon offset projects emerge from non-linear and independent dynamics that are the result of the inherent complexity of social-ecological systems, where large numbers of variables jointly influence causal processes. This creates high levels of uncertainty about the causes of outcomes, and thus makes it very difficult to attribute changes in carbon storage to specific causes, such as offset-funded programs. Furthermore, the predominant solution to this problem suggested in the literature, improved causal inference methods, fails to address the challenge because these methods are designed to estimate average effects across many cases, not to measure causality in specific cases. Even well-designed and resourced projects, such as our two cases, must demonstrate their own measurable impact to serve as offsets, and our analysis suggests that current methods are unable to overcome the joint challenges of causal complexity and methods that estimate average, not individual effects. The need for offsets to demonstrate individual causality makes them quite different from analogous conservation tools such as Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), highlighting why project-based offsetting consistently struggles to meet the expectations of credibility. To achieve effective climate change mitigation, policymakers need to focus on policies that do not depend on inherently uncertain causal attribution.

Expanding tree cover outside forests is central to India’s climate and restoration goals, yet the effectiveness of public programs driving these efforts remains uncertain. We examine eight major government schemes aimed at promoting trees on farmlands and other non-forest lands, linking program funding (2013–2019) with observed tree cover change (2017–2023) across three complementary datasets: the Forest Survey of India (FSI), MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields, and the Brandt et al (2024) high-resolution individual tree maps. Results reveal that while the Sub-Mission on Agroforestry (SMAF) is consistently associated with gains in tree cover on agricultural lands, several other large programs—including those for afforestation, agricultural development, and compensatory planting—show weak or negative relationships with tree cover outside forests. These patterns suggest that program design and targeting, rather than funding volume alone, determine success. Our findings underscore policy priorities such as better alignment of agricultural and forestry incentives to support on-farm trees, improved transparency in program implementation and monitoring, and greater public access to fine-scale expenditure data to enable evaluation of outcomes. As India and other countries expand tree-planting investments under climate and biodiversity commitments, evidence from this study highlights the need to move from funding inputs to verifying outcomes, ensuring that tree-based interventions contribute effectively to both ecological restoration and rural livelihoods.

Environmental values are commonly explained through three theories: post-materialism suggests affluence enables environmental concern, materialism argues environmental harm drives concern, while disconnection theory posits economic growth creates both concern and degradation. We test these frameworks at two levels. First, using aggregate U.S. time-series data (1990-2021), and Vector Autoregression Analysis (VAR) analysis to examine how resource use and environmental impact, economic growth and concern are related. We show that these three theories can complement each other. Both material and carbon footprint growth lead to subsequent GDP growth, supporting materialist views. GDP growth then increases environmental concern, aligning with post-materialist predictions. This causal chain supports disconnection theory: the very process that generates environmental concern-economic growth-simultaneously intensifies environmental degradation. Second, at the individual level (2000-2023), we examine how income relates to environmental preferences and impacts. Contrary to post-materialist expectations of wealthy groups showing greater environmental concern, logistic regression analysis controlling for sociodemographic variables reveals lower-income groups consistently prioritize environmental protection over economic growth. Carbon emissions analysis reveals that carbon footprint inequality among income groups has been rapidly increasing, with the p99/p50 income ratio rising since 1990. By 2019, top1% of income emitted 250 COeq/t per capita and bottom 50 % only 10 COeq/t per capita, while lower-income groups consistently rate environmental conditions as poor and worsening, further supporting materialist theories linking environmental harm to concern. At the societal level, our findings reveal that environmental concern is structurally intertwined with economic growth-a process that simultaneously drives environmental degradation and poses significant challenges for degrowth transitions. In contrast, at the individual level, lower-income groups consistently prioritize environmental protection over economic growth while exhibiting a lower environmental impact. This pattern suggests the potential for a "degrowth from below," initiated by low-income individuals whose heightened preference for environmental protection directly reflects their experience of poor and worsening environmental conditions.

Trees have emerged as a key focus of global environmental policy. Several programs promote planting of trees outside forests (ToF), in places such as farms and grazing lands, due to the potential of trees to provide a wide variety of benefits to people and nature. Yet, our knowledge of human well-being outcomes of ToFs is limited, especially in South Asia. In this systematic literature review, we examine multidimensional human wellbeing outcomes of a wide range of ToF practices in rural landscapes of South Asian countries; including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Relying on six databases, we uncover a large body of research in 325 articles considered for this review. Articles from Bangladesh and India dominate our review, with 71% of the studies. Further, two ToF systems, tree and forest gardens and multipurpose trees on farms, were the most commonly studied, accounting for approximately 43% of the dataset. About 62% of publications reported increases in incomes, representing economic wellbeing, 34% and 36% of publications reported an increase in material wellbeing (access to biomass and fuelwood respectively), and 10% in dietary diversity. ToF systems also created opportunities for vocational training. Trade-offs include negative and mixed outcomes on people’s sense of agency, political voice, and social equity in particular with afforestation and monoculture plantation projects in which governmental agencies took leadership or influential roles. Some research designs were weak and it was unclear whether the studied tree-based systems reflect the actual distribution of tree-based systems in South Asia. This review offers useful insights to guide ongoing and future tree-based natural-climate solutions projects in the region and worldwide to ensure ecological security and human wellbeing are well considered. It also points to areas where future research is needed.

Reforestation is a prominent climate change mitigation strategy, but available global maps of reforestation potential are widely criticized and highly variable, which limits their ability to provide robust estimates of both the locations and total area of opportunity. Here we develop global maps that address common critiques, build on a review of 89 reforestation maps created at multiple scales, and present eight reforestation scenarios with varying objectives, including providing ecosystem services, minimizing social conflicts, and delivering government policies. Across scenarios, we find up to 195 Mha (million hectares) are available (2225 TgCO2e (teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent) per year total net mitigation potential), which is 71-92% smaller than previous estimates because of conservative modeling choices, incorporation of safeguards, and use of recent, high-resolution datasets. This area drops as low as 6 Mha (53 TgCO2e per year total net mitigation potential) if only statutorily protected areas are targeted. Few locations simultaneously achieve multiple objectives, suggesting that a mix of lands and restoration motivations will be needed to capitalize on the many potential benefits of reforestation.

Forest restoration is widely recognized as a global priority to sequester carbon, conserve biodiversity, and support the livelihoods of rural and indigenous people. Contemporary interventions often target landscapes with a substantial human presence, and they regularly call for stakeholder participation during project implementation. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence linking local involvement with multiple forest benefits over long time horizons. Using a unique dataset of four decades of government-sponsored tree planting in North India, we find that both substantive local influence over planning projects and sustained control over management into the present—a favorable combination of long-term, empowered local governance—is associated with greater livelihood benefits and improvements in forest canopy cover over time. Our work points toward complex socio-ecological relationships, which may be explained by a positive interaction between empowered local governance, interventions that align with local needs, and long-term local care for planted forests. This implies that current financial commitments may need to be accompanied by institutional reforms that give communities meaningful control over planning and build capacities for self-governance that can endure into the future. In light of this work, we suggest that a paradigm of ‘people-centered restoration’ may offer the best opportunity to support long-term environmental goals in densely settled landscapes in the Global South.

Societal Impact Statement India has a long history of planting trees to restore ecosystem services providing an opportunity to evaluate long‐term ecosystem restoration processes. We show that these programs have shifted over time in response to public demands as well as through changes in the government's vision for forests. These shifts point towards opportunities and limits for political responsiveness in the design and implementation of restoration programs. Independent evaluations have shown that the tree planting programs we study often fail to achieve their goals, raising questions about their benefits, and risks from positioning tree planting as a panacea for social and environmental problems. Summary Aims: Interest in forest restoration has increased in recent years with the goal of increasing carbon storage, protecting biodiversity, and improving the delivery of ecosystem services to aid rural livelihoods. However, there is little systematic analysis of how this trend relates to broader histories of landscape interventions. Methods: We analyze a dataset comprising 36 years of government plantation records from the forest department of the Indian Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. Findings: Restoration‐oriented tree planting peaked in the 1980s and 1990s with heavy domestic funding. Counter to dominant policy narratives, most plantation programs did not formally involve the participation of local people and were not funded by donors or carbon markets. Over time, planting shifted away from commercial timber species towards a more diverse set of native broadleaf species, reflecting local preferences for the production of firewood, fodder, and other non‐timber forest products and ecosystem services as well as changing conceptions by government agencies about what and who a forest is meant to serve. Over time, the number of programs sponsoring tree planting has proliferated, reflecting the ways that tree planting has been framed as the solution to a growing number of problems, ranging from poverty alleviation to climate adaptation. Conclusion: The current global focus on forest restoration and nature‐based climate solutions represents a reframing of long‐existing policies and programs in this region. As with past policy changes, restoration practices are likely to be influenced by long‐term histories, entrenched practices, and local political influences.

Formal rules define urban governance, yet in democratic systems like the United States, institutions governing public input shape decision-making. Governance literature needs more breadth on how civic engagement varies across types of nature and its implications for urban social-ecological systems. We analyzed five cities' ordinances within the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region, identifying nature-based rules and civic engagement mechanisms. We found ten engagement mechanisms across six nature types, primarily discussed within zoning ordinances-farm animals being the exception. Public hearings were the most frequently mentioned engagement mechanism, yet they have documented biases toward elite perspectives. Despite codification of engagement opportunities, it remains unclear whether utilized mechanisms support substantive input and influence into urban nature governance. Our study not only lays groundwork for research on how to address the inequitable distribution of nature-related benefits and burdens felt by some urban communities, but also inspires further exploration into this crucial area of study.

In recent years, governments and international organizations have initiated numerous large-scale tree planting projects with the dual goals of restoring landscapes and supporting rural livelihoods. However, there remains a need for greater knowledge of drivers and conditions that enable positive social and environmental outcomes over the long term. In this study, we used interpretable machine learning (IML) to explore win–win and win–lose outcomes between livelihood benefits and forest cover using four decades of tree plantation data from northern India. Our results indicated that, in areas with a larger population of socioeconomically marginalized groups, moderate levels of education, and existing histories of community collective action, there is a higher probability of achieving joint positive outcomes. We also found that joint positive outcomes are more common within a consolidated local institutional space, suggesting that decentralized governance structures with cross-sectoral duties and functions may be better equipped to mediate conflicts between intersecting forest and land use challenges. Finally, our findings showed that non-forestry and anti-poverty interventions such as universal labor generation programs and universal education are associated with improved forest cover alongside livelihood benefits from plantations. Whereas contemporary policy discussions have given substantial attention to tree plantation schemes, our work suggests that effective restoration requires much more than planting alone. A broad mixture of socioeconomic, institutional, and policy interventions is needed to create favorable conditions for long-term success. In particular, anti-poverty programs may serve as important indirect policy pathways for ensuring restoration gains.

Designing restoration projects requires integrating socio-economic and cultural needs of local stakeholders for enduring and just outcomes. Using India as a case study, we demonstrate a people-centric approach to help policymakers translate global restoration prioritization studies for application to a country-specific context and to identify different socio-environmental conditions restoration programs could consider when siting projects. Focusing, in particular, on poverty quantified by living standards and land tenure, we find that of the 579 districts considered here, 116 of the poorest districts have high biophysical restoration potential (upper 50th percentile of both factors). In most districts, the predominant land tenure is private, indicating an opportunity to focus on agri-pastoral restoration over carbon and forest-based restoration projects.

Ecosystem restoration is an important means to address global sustainability challenges. However, scientific and policy discourse often overlooks the social processes that influence the equity and effectiveness of restoration interventions. In the present article, we outline how social processes that are critical to restoration equity and effectiveness can be better incorporated in restoration science and policy. Drawing from existing case studies, we show how projects that align with local people's preferences and are implemented through inclusive governance are more likely to lead to improved social, ecological, and environmental outcomes. To underscore the importance of social considerations in restoration, we overlay existing global restoration priority maps, population, and the Human Development Index (HDI) to show that approximately 1.4 billion people, disproportionately belonging to groups with low HDI, live in areas identified by previous studies as being of high restoration priority. We conclude with five action points for science and policy to promote equity-centered restoration.

8.30 – 8.35: Welcome to the day 8.35 – 8.55: Collective Property Rights Lead to Secondary Forest Growth in the Brazilian Amazon, Kathryn Baragwanath 8.55 – 9.15: The mismeasure of terrestrial carbon policy: How many current policies are unjust and ineffective and how to fix it, Forrest Fleischman 9.15 – 9.35: Engaging stakeholders to develop inclusive and just net-zero solutions, Keith Kline 9.35 – 9.55: Terrestrial carbon removal activities, standards, certifications, and their expected durations, Starry Sprenkle-Hoppolite 9.55 – 10.15: Forested anthromes: providing an opportunity for net-zero goals through sustainable management, Maggie Davis Collective Property Rights Lead to Secondary Forest Growth in the Brazilian Amazon Forests serve a crucial role in our fight against climate change. Secondary forests in the form of forest restoration and reforestation provide important potential for conservation of biodiversity and climate change mitigation. In this paper, we explore whether collective property rights in the form of Indigenous Territories (ITs) lead to higher rates of secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas. We exploit the timing of granting of property rights as well as the geographic boundaries of ITs and two different methods, regression discontinuity design and difference-in-difference to recover causal estimates. We find strong evidence that homologated Indigenous territories not only reduce deforestation inside their lands, but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas. After homologation, ITs displayed higher secondary forest growth than land outside ITs with an estimated effect of 2%. Furthermore, the average age of secondary forests was 2.6 years older inside homologated ITs. Together, these findings provide evidence for the role that collective property rights can play in the push to restore forest ecosystems. The mismeasure of terrestrial carbon policy: How many current policies are unjust and ineffective and how to fix it Widely prescribed policies for increasing carbon in terrestrial ecosystems rely on simplified models from finance and ecology which fail to account for social and political realities as well as more complicated economic and ecological factors. Policies such as carbon offsets and large tree planting campaigns are thus often considered synonymous with terrestrial carbon policy. I will draw on my research in India, Mexico, and the US to show how policies that fail to address highly varied drivers of ecosystem change, many unrelated to either finances or ecology, lead to policy failure, and reinforce the widespread view that ecologists and financiers are grabbing land from poor people to allow rich people to continue carbon-wasteful lifestyles. Solutions rely on working closely with local people and democratically elected governments to understand drivers of change in ecosystem carbon storage, and then design policies that respond to those drivers while building political support for long-term carbon storage. Engaging stakeholders to develop inclusive and just net-zero solutions Most nations rely on terrestrial ecosystem sinks as a major part of their emission reduction strategies. Sustaining the carbon-storage capacity of such nature-based sinks in the face of changing climate and increasing societal demands for the provision of multiple ecosystem services will require effective stakeholder engagement and adaptive management. In this context, recent initiatives aim to incorporate principles of social justice while supporting net-zero strategies. We review efforts to devise and implement best practices and “communities of practice” to support inclusive and just transitions toward net zero economies, including the following: • The COP26 Declaration on Conditions for Just Transition • The US Net Zero World Initiative leveraging 9 U.S. government agencies and ten laboratories to support actionable road maps for partner nations to achieve net zero, resilient, and inclusive energy transitions. • International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Workshop Agreement 42, Net Zero Guiding Principles (2022) which aims to enable organizations to achieve net zero GHGs as soon as possible and serve as a common reference for governance (voluntary standards, policy, national and international regulation). Presentation reviews definitions, principles, best practices, and challenges faced by organizations working to achieve net zero goals with an emphasis on justice. Terrestrial carbon removal activities, standards, certifications, and their expected durations Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is a mitigation activity that captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it in reservoirs or products, and proof of storage is given through carbon accounting methodologies embodied in standards. We review nature- and engineering-based terrestrial CDR activities, certifications and standards and explore their expected durations. Using a mapping exercise, we find a complex ecosystem with 23 standard developing organizations certifying carbon removal from 15 different terrestrial CDR activities resulting in the availability of 17 different certification instruments. More standards exist for nature-based compared to engineering-based activities. The process revealed ambiguity on what constitutes CDR and highlights potential reforms to CDR certification. Furthermore, we conducted a literature review of the expected storage durations, risks, and process times for mineral and geologic formations, long-lived products, soil carbon, and above belowground biomass carbon reservoir types (13 terrestrial CDR activities). We find variations in the expected storage durations that span multiple orders of magnitude between reservoir types and within estimates for the same reservoir type. We discuss the implications of the scaling of terrestrial CDR, of different durations, in relation to the Exponential Roadmap for Natural Climate Solutions and perspectives for future terrestrial carbon storage. Forested anthromes: providing an opportunity for net-zero goals through sustainable management Managed forests are an important contributor to nature-based climate solutions. North America’s forestry sector demonstrates how market incentives and sustainable management provide increasing services to society (products, carbon storage, environmental protection). Lessons learned can help other countries as they work to regenerate forest landscapes to achieve emission reduction targets and ecosystem service goals. A systems-thinking approach to complex relationships of functions and values is needed to advance progress towards net-zero goals that depend on this land base. Planning, monitoring and adaptive management based on an understanding of these relationships and key limiting factors, will help mitigate emissions from improper management and maximize the benefits of the CO 2 -fertilization. Strategies that land management organizations (public and private) can employ to achieve these goals will be discussed. This presentation will address the role of small-holders in the US as a contributor to net-zero goals and as an example for other small-holder forested landscapes (e.g., the Brazilian South). Further, we discuss the emergence of carbon markets in the US South as a discussion point for strategizing ways to minimize negative outcomes of the race to net-zero.

The unexpected nature of COVID-19 tested the institutional strength and resilience of state agencies across the world. Preliminary evidence is presented on how reduced mobility due to COVID-19 affected the functioning of the Forest Department in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and triggered changes in forest use by local communities as perceived by forest officials. Our evidence shows mixed outcomes in terms of the effectiveness of the forest bureaucrats in handling the COVID-19 pandemic as assessed through their own perceptions and other forestry records. The positive and negative elements relating to the bureaucratic forest administration during the COVID-19 lockdown are presented, and some possible reasons behind these varying patterns across the state of Himachal Pradesh are suggested. Lessons drawn from the COVID-19 crisis that can help guide forest bureaucracies to deal effectively with unpredictable events in the future are presented.

“The Great Acceleration” poses serious challenges to land managers, policy makers, and all who are interested in the global sustainability of socioecological systems. Methods that can effectively address the uncertainty of the future to allow more robust and adaptive planning and management are urgently needed. We present a case study from northeastern Minnesota to highlight how strategic foresight methods and landscape modeling can serve as complementary tools to generate divergent yet plausible participatory scenarios to ultimately model the potential impacts of these scenarios on fundamental ecosystem services over 50 years. The landscape scenarios generated from the scenario process ranged widely, from optimistic futures to dire outcomes; these scenarios were far more divergent than outcomes explored in a traditional factorial landscape modeling study. This greater range in possible futures leads to more useful model outputs to guide the decisions of planners, managers, and policymakers. Our study illustrates advantages of blending the power of multiple strategic foresight tools with landscape modeling to generate alternative future storylines that are enlightening (i.e., expanding the scope of possibilities), useful (via strong contrasts), and yet plausible (i.e., grounded by robust science and stakeholder perspectives). Strategic foresight methods such as horizon scanning can also be useful in on-going monitoring of landscapes to support adaptive management aimed at fostering sustainable futures. Combining these approaches enhances creativity and wide-ranging plausibility (strategic foresight) with science-based assessments of outcomes and trajectories (landscape modeling), increasing the likelihood of creating resilient, preferred futures.

Grasslands are contested ecosystems due to our scant understanding of their ecological and socioeconomic roles and also due to the ambiguity in understanding what exactly constitutes them. This problem escalates in the absence of proper governance. In this paper, we explore the historical accounts of Indian grasslands to trace how they have shaped contemporary grassland conservation and restoration policies. The paper draws from the concept of Biome Awareness Disparity and links it to grassland degradation through misleading nomenclature and flawed interventions rooted in misplaced governance. We found that Indian grasslands are negatively affected by India's commitment to global goals (with quantified targets of increasing tree cover) and the involvement of multiple government bodies in grassland management. This conundrum is fueled by the strong forest bias within government bodies and nongovernmental organizations. Based on the findings, we propose that India needs a more cohesive national policy framework and a robust ecosystem classification system to successfully conserve and restore grasslands.

In this article, we respond to a critique of our earlier work examining the USDA Forest Service’s (USFS’s) planning processes. We appreciate that our critics introduce new data to the discussion of USFS planning. Further data integration is a promising path to developing a deeper understanding of agency activities. Our critics’ analysis largely supports our original claims. Our most important difference is in our conceptualization of the planning process’s relationship to agency goals. Although our critics conceive of the USFS’s legally prescribed planning processes as a barrier to land management activities, we believe that public comment periods, scientific analysis, and land management activities are tools the agency uses to achieve its goals of managing land in the public interest. Study Implications: The USDA Forest Service’s current planning process has been critiqued as a barrier to accomplishing land management activities, but it is also an important tool for insuring science-based management and understanding public values and interests that the agency is legally bound to uphold.